What Lighting?

[Myka]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

Is there a reason you only want to use 1 bulb? It will work, but two bulbs on a 36" tank will give you a real nice coverage. I would go with 250 watt, in the bulb of your choice to provide the color you are looking for. Personally I love the AB 10K bulbs but they are hard to find around here. T5s are Ok, but spend the money and go MH with T5's to supplement the color.

Steve

The cost of a single MH setup with bulb is cheaper than a 6 bulb T5 fixture with bulbs. I also will not spend more than $500 including bulb(s). I can't justify spending more than that on my "hobby". I refuse to buy 2 MH for my 65 because of the simple fact that it is a 36" tank. Since each halide lights a 24x24" patch I see it as a waste of light (and the reduce, reuse, and recycle part of me doesn't like to waste electricity either lol). This is why I figured that if I went with halide maybe I should go with a 400W HQI, and I may get a bit better coverage, but I have only been able to find one bulb around here and it is a 20K...I don't want to run a 20K. But right now I am leaning towards a T5 fixture.

Originally Posted by fishoholic

From personal experience if you want good colours and great growth from your corals go with MH. I would think a 250w MH HQI Hamilton bulb would do nicely. All I know is that our zoos (that we have) and the sps corals (that we had, sold them) would not grow under T5's. The light was so poor for the sps they started to die off, again just our experience. Ended up moving them to the tank with MH and not only did they start coming back but they got lots of new growth. Our lps corals and most softies and our anemone have done great under the T5's. I do find that (personally) I like the look of the MH better, I find it's more of a blue light whereas the t5's seem more yellow.

That is funny...I grow SPS under my current T5 lighting and it does quite well, especially considering I only have 2.4 W per gallon of T5. T5s come in all sorts of Kelvin as do MH. These Giesemann T5 bulbs are the first ones that I have had trouble with them yellowing with age. This may be because I am running a Midday (6000K) and a single Pure Actinic. It didn't look yellow when they were new though as the Pure Actinic is very blue.

[tang daddy]

IMO 400w mh for my old 65g was enough light to grow sps it all depends on what kind of sps you are trying to grow if digi and monti t5 is good. If you look at the euro tanks they all run t5 but keep in mind that they run 8-10 t5 at 84w ea that's comparable to us running 2x250 or 2x400 with t5 supplementation I currently run 1000w for a 120g and find it suffiecient also if you run t5 for your tank and wish to have sps thrive then you need awesome flow and to feed the sps with ultralith or similiar types aswell as prodibio.

[DanG]

If you're unhappy with the giesmann bulbs, check ATI or URI bulbs. They're the ones I'm using and they have great colour output and I've had them for a bit more than 6 months without any hint of yellow.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

I love the KZ (Korallen-Zucht) T5 bulbs. I added just one Fiji Purple and it made a real difference. That's the true genius of T5

[Pan]

I thought the genius of T5 was there energy savings and money savings

If i every go for more lighting than the MH pendant for the big tank I am going to buy T5, but I am going for a spotlighted type thing in a big tank, wish to see how it works out.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by 'Ol Nobodaddy

I thought the genius of T5 was there energy savings and money savings

not really, you end up having to put more wattage over the tank and still have less intensity, better and more even coverage, but less intensity.

tank a 2X2 tank as an example, 1 250 watt MH will light the heck out of it.

it would take say 12 T5's to evenly light it, which works out to 288 watts.

now going from the same perspective a MH pendant could be raised to light a 3X3 area at about the same intensity as a T5 set up sitting right on the top. in this situation the MH would be way more power friendly for the same intensity as even if you used 12 bulbs, and stretched them out a bit, it would be 468 watts.

also when you look at time for bulb replacement, at a 1 year interval the MH would be say 80 to 100 bucks a year buying locally, 12, T5 bulbs would be 252.00 (24" bulbs) to replace (and that is a J&L prices which are about 15 bucks a bulb cheaper than the Island) say you do your T5's every 18 months the MH is still cheaper to replace. so for me it would be 384.00 to replace 12 T5 bulbs, also the chemical pollution of disposing of that many bulbs is way worse so environmentally the less bulbs we can get away with the better.

Steve

[Pan]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

not really, you end up having to put more wattage over the tank and still have less intensity, better and more even coverage, but less intensity.

tank a 2X2 tank as an example, 1 250 watt MH will light the heck out of it.

it would take say 12 T5's to evenly light it, which works out to 288 watts.

now going from the same perspective a MH pendant could be raised to light a 3X3 area at about the same intensity as a T5 set up sitting right on the top. in this situation the MH would be way more power friendly for the same intensity as even if you used 12 bulbs, and stretched them out a bit, it would be 468 watts.

also when you look at time for bulb replacement, at a 1 year interval the MH would be say 80 to 100 bucks a year buying locally, 12, T5 bulbs would be 252.00 (24" bulbs) to replace (and that is a J&L prices which are about 15 bucks a bulb cheaper than the Island) say you do your T5's every 18 months the MH is still cheaper to replace. so for me it would be 384.00 to replace 12 T5 bulbs, also the chemical pollution of disposing of that many bulbs is way worse so environmentally the less bulbs we can get away with the better.

Steve

I stand...well sit sipping tea...corrected guess i'm not going to switch.

[Myka]

The T5 bulb replacement is what eats ya! T5s aren't cheaper than MH. That is not why I'm leaning towards them. The main two reasons I am leaning towards T5 instead of MH is bulb color choices, and heat.

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

tank a 2X2 tank as an example, 1 250 watt MH will light the heck out of it.

it would take say 12 T5's to evenly light it, which works out to 288 watts.

I don't think this is accurate. I'm actually going to take a closer look at PAR levels in the ole MH/T5 debate, but I'm pretty sure that comparing W to W you need a bit less T5 to get the same intensity as the MH. One 250w MH over a 24x24x24" I think would be far less PAR than twelve 39w T5s. I can't even imagine how bright twelve T5s would be over that space!!! I actually don't think it would fit.

I have seen several VERY nice SPS Euro tanks lit by 6-8 W per gallon with 24-30" depth.

Originally Posted by tang daddy

also if you run t5 for your tank and wish to have sps thrive then you need awesome flow and to feed the sps with ultralith or similiar types aswell as prodibio.

Flow is not a problem, and is about the easiest and cheapest thing to provide for them. I do plan on running some sort of supplementation system. I'm leaning towards ZEOvit right now, but I'm not keen on the daily maintenance of it. Looking at options right now. I currently do feed the ZEOvit Amino Acids, and SeaChem Reef Plus (at 10% dosage). I have noticed quite a difference upon adding each additive, which I did at different times.

Originally Posted by DanG

If you're unhappy with the giesmann bulbs, check ATI or URI bulbs. They're the ones I'm using and they have great colour output and I've had them for a bit more than 6 months without any hint of yellow.

Awesome! I was going to try ti URI next, so it's good that there are some good reviews from them. I was really disappointed in the yellowing I've gotten from my Giesemann bulbs.

Originally Posted by Der_Iron_Chef

I love the KZ (Korallen-Zucht) T5 bulbs. I added just one Fiji Purple and it made a real difference. That's the true genius of T5

I haven't seen this brand of bulbs (but they have supplements don't they?) around here. I'll send an email to J&L...see if they can track em down.

[fishoholic]

Now that I think about it our SPS might of done poorly because of all the other types corals we have in our tank. Chemical warfare was probably more to blame then the lights.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by fishoholic

Now that I think about it our SPS might of done poorly because of all the other types corals we have in our tank. Chemical warfare was probably more to blame then the lights.

Chemical warfare sucks. Don't forget your carbon! Speaking of which...

My AquaClear (which runs my carbon and PhosBan) wasn't working today so I ripped it apart, cleaned it out, and put it back together. Upon doing so I realised I was not running any carbon, and my PhosBan hasn't been changed for a couple months. Now that I have both of those changed, my water isn't looking yellow. So..............it wasn't the Giesemanns yellowing out on me after all. LOL!